Pantheon of brains: the Moscow Brain Research Institute 1925-1936

The investigation of Lenin's brain by the German neurobiologist Oskar Vogt and his Russian collaborators in Moscow is one of the most exciting and simultaneously questionable chapters in the history of medicine. With the bizarre claim to be able to detect the material substrate of genius it provoked as much unrealistic expectations in the public as strong criticism by the scientific community of brain researchers. The following paper deals in a brief survey with the foundation and the early history of the Moscow Brain Research Institute (INSTITUT MOZGA) and its initial task - the collecting and mapping the brains of famous (Russian) persons in general and the investigation of Lenin's brain in particular.     

Radiocarbon dates for the late Middle Palaeolithic at Pech de l'Azé IV,France

This paper reports a series of radiocarbon dates on bone samples coming from the Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA) Layer 3 at the top of the Pech de l'Azé IV (Pech IV, France) Middle Palaeolithic sequence. All of these samples showed evidence of human impact, and they were prepared using current pre-treatment techniques to remove or identify contamination. The results indicate that the MTA at Pech IV started prior to the current limit of radiocarbon calibration (circa 50 ka BP) and ended by 45 ka cal. BP. These dates are supported by additional TL and ESR dates from the sequence, confirm previously suggested correlations between Pech I and IV, and generally fit within the known age range for the MTA. The oldest dates reported here may also lend support to still older TL dates for the MTA that taken together suggest that the MTA extended from late MIS 4 or early OIS 3 through to the end of the Middle Palaeolithic in southwest France.     

First chronometric dates (TL and OSL) for the Aurignacian open-air site of Româneşti-Dumbrăviţa I,Romania

Currently, absolute dates for the emergence of the Early Upper Paleolithic and the timing of the earliest dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) into Europe are sparse. This is especially true for regions adjoining the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Europe with its dense clusters of sites along the Austrian and German Danube Valley. This article makes a first step toward filling this gap and, for the first time, presents absolute ages for the open-air site of Române?ti-Dumbr?vi?a I (Banat, SW Romania) located close to the Oase Cave where some of the oldest AMH fossils were found. A set of heated artefacts recently excavated from the Aurignacian layer GH3 was dated by thermoluminescence (TL) and gives early chronometric dates for this technocomplex in Romania.     

Reviews

Art and Power. Europe under the dictators, 1930–45 Hayward Gallery, London, 26 October, 1995–21 January 1996; Centro de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona, 26 February‐6 May 1996; Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 7 June‐20 August 1996.

Richard Bessel (ed.), Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, 256 pp., ISBN 0–521–47129x hbk, £35.00,0–521–477115 pbk, £ 12.95.

Alexander J. de Grand, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, The ‘Fascist Style of Rule’, Routledge, London, 1995, 128 pp., ISBN 0–451–105986 pbk, £ 7.99.

R.J.B. Bosworth, Italy and the Wider World 1860–1960, Routledge, London, 1996, 252pp., ISBN 0–415–134773–3, hbk, £40.

Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duce's Other Woman, William Morrow and Co. Inc., New York, 1993, 685 pp., ISBN 0–688–06299–7, pbk, $25.00.

Lino Del Fra, Sciara Sciat. Genocidio nell'oasi. L'esercito italiano a Tripoli, Datanews, Rome, 1995,103 pp., ISBN 88–7981–051–0,15,000 Lire.

Angelo Del Boca, I gas di Mussolini, Il fascismo e la guerra d'Etiopia, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1996,190 pp., ISBN 88–359–4091–5,15,000 Lire.

Giovanni De Luna, Donne in oggetto. L'antifascismo nella società italiana, 1922–1939, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 1995, 435 pp., ISBN 88–339–0932–8, hbk, 50,000 Lire.

Roberto Franzosi, The Puzzle of Strikes. Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, pp.502, ISBN 0–521–45287–2 hbk, £.40.00.

Adriano and Luca Sofri (eds), Si allontanarono alla spicciolata. Le carte riservate di polizia su Lotta Continua, Sellerio Editorio, Palermo, 1996, pp.183, ISBN 88–389–1228–9, hbk, 15,000 Lire.

Stephen Gundle and Simon Parker (eds), The New Italian Republic. From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to Berlusconi, Routledge, London, 1996, 352 pp., ISBN 0415 12161 2 hbk, £45.00, ISBN 0 415 12162 0 pbk, £14.99.

Marco Innocenti, L'Italia del dopoguerra 1946–1960. Come eravamo negli anni dal boogie‐woogie alia dolce vita, Mursia, Milan, 1995, pp.238, ISBN 88–425–1911–1 pbk, 28,000 Lire.

Richard S. Katz and Piero Ignazi (eds), Italian Politics. The Year of the Tycoon, Istituto Cattaneo/Westview Press, Oxford and Boulder, Co., 1996, 261 pp., ISBN 0–8133–8972–0 hbk, £37.00,0–8133–2976–0 pbk, £13.50.

Gian Enrico Rusconi, Resistenza e postfascismo, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1995, 207 pp., ISBN 88–15–04850–2, pbk, 18,000 Lire.

Giulio Sapelli, Southern Europe since 1945: Tradition and Modernity in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey, translated by Ann Fuller, Longman, London, 1995, 251 pp., ISBN 0–582–07064–3 hbk, £35.00, 0–582–07065–1 pbk, £14.99.

Frank M. Snowden, Naples in the Time of Cholera, 1884–1911, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, 478 pp., ISBN 0–521–48310–7 hbk, £40.00.

Lucio Sponza and Diego Zancani (compilers), World Bibliographical Series: Volume 30: Italy, Clio Press, Oxford and Santa Barbara, Ca., 1995, xxi + 417 pp., ISBN 0–903450–44–5 hbk, £67.50.

Storia dell'Italia repubblicana. Volume seconda, La. trasformazione dell'Italia: sviluppo e squilibri. I. Politica, economia, società, Einaudi, Turin, 1995, pp.897, ISBN 88–06–1365–6 hbk, 130,000 Lire.

Carlo Tullio‐Altan; Ethnos e civiltà. Identiche etniche e valori democratici, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1995, 181 pp., ISBN 88–07–10193–9 pbk, 30,000 Lire.

Perry R. Willson, The Clockwork Factory: Women and Work in Fascist Italy, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993, 291 pp., ISBN 0–19–822732–9 hbk, £35.00.     

Reviews

Gino Bedani, Politics and Ideology in the Italian Workers’ Movement: Union Development and the Changing Role of the Catholic and Communist Subcultures in Postwar Italy, Berg, Oxford, 1995, xiv + 365 pp., ISBN 0–85496–827‐X, £44.95.

Anna Bull and Paul Corner, From Peasant to Entrepreneur. The Survival of the Family Economy in Italy, Berg, Oxford, 1993, ix + 174 pp., ISBN 0–85496–309‐X, £29.95.

Daniela Luigia Caglioti, Il guadagno difficile. Commercianti napoletani nella seconda metà dell'Ottocento, Ricerca, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994, 272 pp., ISBN 88–15–04755–7, 36,000 Lire.

Salvatore Casillo and Vincenzo Moretti, False imprese e falsi imprenditori. Dall'industria fantasma allo sviluppo delle aree terremotate nel Mezzogiorno, Koinè, Rome, 1993, 258 pp., 28,000 Lire.

Christopher Duggan, A Concise History of Italy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, xiv + 320 pp., ISBN 0–521–40285–9, £25 hbk, ISBN 0–521–40848–2, £8.95 pbk.

Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia. The Business of Private Protection, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass., 1993, 335 pp., ISBN 0–674–80741–3, £24.95 hbk.

Stefano Zamagni (ed.), Mercati illegaliemafie. L'economia delcrimine organizzato, II Mulino, Bologna, 1993, 410 pp., ISBN 88–15–04159–1, 50,000 Lire.

Marco Giusti and Alberto Piccinini, Ambra, Nuova ERI, Turin, 1994, 121 pp., ISBN 88–397–0902–9, 18,000 Lire.

Antonio Gramsci, Pre‐Prison Writings, edited by Richard Bellamy, translated by Virginia Cox, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, 350 pp., ISBN 0–521–41143–2 hbk, £40.00, 0–521–42307–4 pbk, £10.95.

Richard M. Locke, Remaking the Italian Economy, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1995, xiii + 232 pp., ISBN 0–8014–2221–3, £23.50.

Luisa Passerini, Mussolini immaginario, Laterza, Bari, 1991, 290 pp., ISBN 88–420–3738–9, 45,000 Lire.

Gian Franco Pompei, Un Ambasciatore in Vaticano. Diario, 1969–1977, a cura di Pietro Scoppola, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994, 604 pp., ISBN 88–15–04317–9, 60,000 Lire.

Lucy Riall, The Italian Risorgimento. State, Society and National Unification, Routledge, London, 1994, 101 pp., ISBN 0–415–05775–2.

Salvatore Vassallo, Il governo di partito in Italia (1943–93), Il Mulino, Bologna, 1994, 324 pp., ISBN 88–15–04589–9, 42,000 Lire.